The Centre for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies brings together researchers from across the social sciences and humanities who are interested in the histories, legacies and persistent characteristics of colonial relations.

Key themes coming under the centre’s remit include the ways in which competing colonial discourses, projects and networks shaped metropolitan-colony relations in the British Empire; the histories of Western humanitarianism and of colonial science; the history of modern South Africa; the historical and ongoing development of racial segregation in various spaces; political, ideological and intellectual constructions of race, ethnicity and national identity; West African, Caribbean and Indian literature and readerships; American imperial relationships with the postcolonial world;  histories of sexuality in the colonial and postcolonial world; the analysis of class, gender and livelihoods in neo-colonial situations, and the dynamics of contemporary humanitarian interventions in sites of conflict.